Time To Go Nouveau

We’re facing the countdown to turkey time and that age-old conundrum: To stuff, or not to stuff?

Not really. The dilemma of whether you want to stick your dressing into that gaping cavity will no doubt be addressed in another part of the paper. (The sports page, perhaps.)

Of course, we’re here to talk about what wine should be served with the bird. First, let’s just get over the idea that there’s a perfect food-wine match. Uh-uh. No can do.

The traditional Thanksgiving feast has such a mishmash of flavors and textures (those mini-marshmallows in Aunt Wanda’s green Jell-O, for instance) that it’s nearly impossible to achieve a Bogart-and-Bacall-type pairing.

For this year’s feed, I’m leaning toward a little something from the 1997 vintage. Yup, the stuff that was picked just weeks ago and is still in its infancy.

The release of Beaujolais nouveau is cause for a nationwide party in France each year. The light, fruity wines are a nice way to punctuate the end of one harvest and muse about the other wines that will come out of this vintage.

Advance word from “The Continent” is that it was a banner year in Italy and southern France, but the verdict is still out on the Burgundy region, where Beaujolais is produced.

No matter how spectacular the growing conditions, this isn’t a wine folks are going to gush about.

Consider what Tom Stevenson wrote in the recently released “New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia”: “Beaujolais nouveau was never meant to be considered a serious wine. Lollipop wine is how it’s known in the trade.”

Well, I happen to like a good lollipop now and then.

Drink nouveau in the spirit it was originally intended: as a wine to celebrate the season. Besides, its typically fresh, bright qualities tend to work nicely with the flavors on the Thanksgiving table. (Especially the cranberry sauce.)

The first wines from the ‘97 harvest in France arrived in Spokane last week, only a matter of days after their release in Europe. Small world, huh?

A few California vintners also release a nouveau, but stick to the French stuff. Reliable producers include two of the most famous names in France: Georges Duboeuf and Joseph Drouhin. It might be fun to pick up a Beaujolais with a little bit of age (the ‘96 vintage is still on the shelf) and compare the two.

Expect to spend around $10 a bottle for the nouveau. That’s down a little bit from $11 and $12 in previous years.

No matter what you pour, I hope you get stuffed on Thanksgiving.

Gimmicks we love

Frank Sinatra is my favorite Rat-Packer, the crooner whose CDs I slip on when I sip martinis, not red wine.

Yet, there’s his likeness on a bottle of merlot being marketed by an outfit called Celebrity Cellars. It’s Ol’ Blue Eyes back when he was young and skinny. Who knows what the wine tastes like. It almost seems like that’s beside the point.

You can order the likeness of any number of Hollywood legends on these “limited edition” bottles. Might be kind of a kick, Jack. For a catalog, call (415) 437-4959.

Another come-on that caught my eye in a national publication was a gizmo called a “vintage enhancer.” It’s being sold by The Sharper Image for $70. For that chunk of change, you get a metal container in which you load your bottle of wine. It uses molecular ionization to “accentuate the fruit as it mellows the acid.” So, the wine supposedly tastes like it’s older than it is.

Sounds like serious science fiction. What’s next? Cloning famous winemakers?

Tippling trivia

Did you know that:

The Pacific Rim Riesling put out by California wine whiz Randall Graham (Bonny Doon) is made from Washington state fruit?

Juice from this state is routinely shipped to Japan, where it’s made into stuff that’s labeled Japanese wine? (Law there requires that just 5 percent in a given bottle be from Japan.) One of Washington’s most respected vintners makes his famous cabernet from Oregon grapes? (Gary Figgins’ Leonetti Cellars reserve cab comes from the Seven Hills Vineyard near Milton-Freewater, Ore.) I picked up this “dirt” during a recent tour of Washington’s vineyards.

Bidding on the net

If you haven’t found time to make it to one of those high-profile wine auctions at Sotheby’s or Christie’s, you can sign on and bid on rare releases on the Internet.

The bidding at this online auction goes on a bit longer than most standard auctions (around two weeks), but there are more than 150 lots.

One of the items on the block (or the byte, in this case) is a huge collection of Silver Oak wines.

The only catch is that you must register before you can browse through the offerings, and to do so, you must include a credit card number. (I’m not thrilled with that.) If you’re interested in checking it out, you’ll find it at www.winebid.com.

Pocket full of info

Just in time for stuffing stockings, the 1998 edition of Hugh Johnson’s “Pocket Encyclopedia of Wine” (published by the Fireside division of Simon & Schuster) has hit the bookstores.

This $13 handbook is crammed with lots of maps and details about particular producers and vintages. Half of the 280-page guide is dedicated to Europe (the Northwest gets dissected over four measly pages). So, if you want to find out what wine expert Johnson thinks about an obscure release from the Rheinhessen, it’s in there.

There’s also lots of basic information, including a section on matching food and wine. (Johnson is an Englishman, though, so there’s not a word about what works well with Thanksgiving dinner.)

Grapevine is a monthly feature of IN Food. Write to: Grapevine, Features Department, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. Call 459-5486, fax 459-5098 or e-mail to lesliek@spokesman.com

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Leslie Kelly The Spokesman-Review